Last updated February 17, 2009 7:18 p.m. PT
Wash. Stryker brigade headed to Afghanistan
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
FORT LEWIS, Wash. -- The Fort Lewis, Wash.-based 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division is headed to Afghanistan in midsummer. The 3,900 soldiers had been scheduled to go to Iraq this summer.
President Barack Obama on Tuesday approved adding some 17,000 U.S. troops for the flagging war in Afghanistan, his first significant move to change the course of that conflict. In addition to the Stryker Brigade, those forces will include a Marine unit and support troops.
Fort Lewis spokesman Joe Piek says the 5th Stryker Brigade is the Army's newest Stryker Brigade - activated in May 2007 - and the fourth to be formed, equipped and trained at Fort Lewis. The brigade's soldiers are currently at the Army National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif., for exercises through the end of February.
Stryker brigades are based around highly mobile eight-wheeled infantry troop carriers.
